Chapter 4

At the camp, rifles and revolvers were hastily wiped clean of cosmoline and passed around. Binoculars were taken out and adjusted. Cartridges were divided up, and the supply of knives, machetes and hatchets quickly disappeared. The expedition’s two walkie-talkies were unpacked, and the men prepared to move out in search of Drake. Then they saw him, swimming vigorously around the edge of the island.

He waded ashore, tired but uninjured. He and the others put their information together and reached some unhappy conclusions.

“Do you mean to say,” Cable demanded, “that a bug is doing all this?”

“It looks that way,” Sorensen said. “We have to assume that it’s able to exercise some kind of thought control. Maybe hypnotic or telepathic.”

“It has to sting first,” Drake said. “That’s what it did with Oro.”

“I just can’t imagine a scorpion doing all that,” Recetich said.

“It’s not a scorpion,” Drake said. “I saw it close up. It’s got a tail like a scorpion, but its head is damn near four times as big, and its body is different. Up close, it doesn’t look like anything you ever saw before.”

“Do you think it’s native to this island?” asked Monty Byrnes, a treasure-seeker from Indianapolis.

“I doubt it,” Drake said. “If it is, why did it leave us and the animals alone for three months?”

“That’s right,” Sorensen said. “All our troubles began just after the schooner came. The schooner must have brought it from somewhere ... Hey!”

“What is it?” Drake asked.

“Remember that scorpion the skipper tried to squash? It came out of the detector crate. Do you think it could be the same one?”

Drake shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. Seems to me our problem right now isn’t finding out where it came from. We have to figure out what to do about it.”

“If it can control animals,” Byrnes said, “I wonder if it can control men.”

They were all silent. They had moved into a circle near the copra shed, and while they talked they watched the jungle for any sign of insect or animal life.

Sorensen said, “We’d better radio for help.”

“If we do that,” Recetich said, “somebody’s going to find out about the Santa Teresa treasure. We’ll be overrun in no time.”

“Maybe so,” Sorensen said. “But at the worst, we’ve cleared expenses. We’ve even made a small profit.”

“And if we don’t get help,” Drake said, “we may be in no condition to take anything out of here.”

“The problem isn’t as bad as all that,” Byrnes said. “We’ve got guns. We can take care of the animals.”

“You haven’t seen the bug yet,” Drake said.

“We’ll squash it.”

“That won’t be easy,” Drake said. “It’s faster than hell. And how are you going to squash it if it comes into your hut some night while you’re asleep? We could post guards and they wouldn’t even see the thing.”

Brynes shuddered involuntarily. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe we’d better radio for help.”

Eakins stood up. “Well, gents,” he said, “I guess that means me. I just hope the batteries on the ketch are up to charge.”

“It’ll be dangerous going out there,” Drake said. “We’ll draw lots.”

Eakins was amused. “We will? How many of you can operate a transmitter?”

Drake said, “I can.”

“No offense meant,” Eakins said, “but you don’t operate that set of yours worth a damn. You don’t even know Morse for key transmission. And can you fix the set if it goes out?”

“No,” Drake said. “But the whole thing is too risky. We all should go.”

Eakins shook his head. “Safest thing all around is if you cover me from the beach. That bug probably hasn’t thought about the ketch yet.”

Eakins stuck a tool kit in his pocket and strapped one of the camp’s walkie-talkies over his shoulder. He handed the other one to Sorensen. He hurried down the beach past the launch and pushed the small dinghy into the water. The men of the expedition spread out, their rifles ready. Eakins got into the dinghy and started rowing across the quiet lagoon.

They saw him tie up to the ketch and pause a moment, looking around. Then he climbed aboard. Quickly he slid back the hatch and went inside.

“Everything all right?” Sorensen asked.

“No trouble yet,” Eakins said, his voice sounding thin and sharp over the walkie-talkie. “I’m at the transmitter now, turning it on. It needs a couple of minutes to warm up.”